Page 2071 - Week 08 - Wednesday, 9 September 1992
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .
Wednesday, 9 September 1992
___________________________
MADAM SPEAKER (Ms McRae) took the chair at 10.32 am and read the prayer.
DRUGS OF DEPENDENCE (AMENDMENT) BILL (NO. 2) 1992
Debate resumed from 19 August 1992, on motion by Mr Moore:
That this Bill be agreed to in principle.
MR CONNOLLY (Attorney-General, Minister for Housing and Community Services and Minister for Urban Services) (10.33): I will be taking the call for the Government on this matter. The issue of reform of the law in relation to cannabis has been before this community and this Assembly for quite some time. Last year Mr Collaery, as a private member, presented a Bill which had provision for on-the-spot fines for certain cannabis offences. That Bill was not debated, but spokespersons for all of the parties then in the Assembly said that this was an idea that had merit and that it should be looked at carefully.
Last year the Opposition party's policy committee, as the Canberra Times reported in March 1991, proposed a policy which said outright that this Territory should decriminalise the personal use of marijuana. Mr Humphries, the then Liberal Minister for Health, was on record as saying that he would be involved in the drafting of the policy. He said:
... I certainly think that our community is mature enough now to handle this issue and debate it fully. ... I think we should be looking at it in the Liberal Party, and I will be supporting debate of this matter ...
Unfortunately, Madam Speaker, this Opposition is bereft of any ideas, bereft of any criteria on which to attack this Government on its economic performance or on its social performance. This Government, in the 12 months or so that we have been in office, has received the endorsement of the Canberra community, and that resulted in the re-election of the Follett Government.
This Opposition decided that it had nowhere to go with that sensible approach. It had to go out to private consultants who had to tell them how to conduct themselves in this chamber. The consultant said, "The way to conduct yourselves is to put the maximum distance between you and the Government. So do not worry about the merits; do not worry about the sensible comments that Mr Humphries was making in March 1991. Rant and rave, generate hysteria wherever you can; generate fear; confuse; bamboozle". That is the approach that has been adopted by the Opposition on this issue.
Instead of the rational comments that were being made by Mr Humphries when he was Minister for Health, and when his policy committee was proposing the decriminalisation of marijuana, we have had hysterical nonsense coming out of members opposite, suggesting that the Labor Party is going to end civilisation as
Next page . . . . Previous page . . . . Contents . . . . Debates(HTML) . . . . PDF . . . .